Intersection
by pl2363
Summary: This is for tf rare pairing's Rumi challenge, March, 2012. Drift and Thundercracker meet and discover things about each other and themselves.


Title: Intersection

By: pl2363

Rating: T

Universe: G1/IDW

Characters: Drift, Thundercracker

Notes/Warnings: Mention of noncon but nothing explicit. Angst and attraction.

Wordcount: 2700 words

Prompt: 2. You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?

Notes: This is for tf_rare_pairing's Rumi challenge on Livejournal, March, 2012. It's a short one shot.

* * *

><p>Earth had become Drift's new home. The Decepticons scattered into pockets on both Cybertron and Earth. The Autobots who held an interest in the welfare of the human inhabitants had volunteered to stay behind, while the rest returned to Cybertron.<p>

Drift volunteered to stay. He had done so for two reasons. One, his closest and only truly trusted friend, Perceptor, had elected to stay. And secondly, he had fallen in love with Earth. It was a beautiful place, filled with organic wonders he loved to explore.

Backlash against all 'giant robots' was the natural reaction of the human residents after all the damage they had left behind on their beloved New York City. This forced them back into hiding. Protecting, while being careful not to expose themselves. Despite only being able to explore Earth in his alt mode, Drift deeply enjoyed his time driving among the humans. Tuning into their various radio broadcasts, parking and watching their movies played on large screens, or even just taking in all the various billboards and signs they seemed to like putting everywhere. He found humans fascinating.

:: Drift? ::

:: Yeah, Percy? :: He replied over the comm. line.

:: I wanted to advise you that your current course will take you into a higher elevation mountainous region, :: Perceptor replied.

:: I know. I wanted to do a little exploring. :: Drift switched lanes to pass a slower truck.

:: Due to our limited resources, our signals may not be able to penetrate the rock of mountain range once you traverse through the first pass. :: Drift could hear a touch of concern in his friend's voice.

:: I'll be careful, Percy, :: he replied confidently.

:: Please do, :: Perceptor replied.

He was actually excited that he'd be off the grid once he made it over this mountain pass. Always a loner and someone who loved a challenge, it was an appealing thought to be totally on his own for a while.

His engine picked up as he drove the inclined highway up the mountain pass. Other human vehicles noisily complained beside him as they climbed upward. Thankfully he wasn't sporting a primitive engine like they were, and easily made his way to the crest. The decent on the otherside wasn't as easy, he had to reign in his much more powerful engine to keep from running others off the road. Ups and downs of the mountain roads became almost rhythmic as he pressed on, taking in the wondrous view of rocks, trees, and low-level clouds. Seeing a sign for a 'vista point', Drift decided to take the exit.

This road proved to be quite unkempt. Potholes riddled its surface and jostled his frame each time he miscalculated and landed a tire in one. He slowed down considerably to make his way up the road, following the small brown signs with white lettering that told him the 'vista point' was ahead. Unsure he'd made a wise decision as the road narrowed ahead of him, he came to a stop. He'd be much better off in his robot mode, but what if a human vehicle same by? Internally sighing, he rolled forward and carefully rounded a bend in the road.

On the other side was one of the most spectacular views he'd ever seen in his life. Humans be damned, he wanted to view with his optics. He transformed and stepped out into a pull off area just off the roadway. Before him stood the most glorious set of mountains he'd seen yet. Their tops were capped in gleaming white snow. Trees covered the lower slopes in a quilt of various greens and browns. He stood for the longest time, gazing and taking it all in.

Eventually, he knew he needed to find his way back to the main road. He took in one last long view, then turned around and transformed to make the trek back down the bumpy road.

Wanting to get off this poorly kept road, he picked his speed up a little bit. Coming around a corner he was met with an unexpected sight. Deer. Several of them all stood around in the road. Not wanting to harm them, he swerved without thinking and lost his traction, which sent him careening into the metal railing that gave way under his weight. He went tumbling over the steep edge of the road. He transformed as he fell, in an attempt to grab hold and slow his all too fast decent down the rocky mountainside. It was futile. He fell, knocking around until he finally came to a stop as the bottom of a ravine.

The damages were extensive. So severe, in fact, his body forced him offline.

_Frag…_

…

The first thing he registered as he began to online was that he was cold. His body shuddered with a chill, which lit up his sensory net with a wave of pain. He groaned as he lit his optics. What he'd expected to see was not what filled his field of vision. It was dark over his head, but not from a night sky… He was staring up at rock. Confused, a wave of dizziness hit him hard and he felt like he was spinning, despite knowing he was lying still on his back.

His hands shot up to his head, holding both sides as he winced, trying to will it to stop. He diagnosed the problem as a gyroscope misaligned and shut down the connection to it. The world finally stilled. Sighing with relief, he painfully pushed himself up onto his elbows to see where he was. Glancing around, he could see it was a cave. The end glowed brightly with the daylight. How had he gotten into this cave? Hadn't he offlined in a ravine?

Whirring sounds echoed from the cave entrance as the answer appeared: an outlined shape of a seeker.

As the seeker approached him his confusion intensified. Of all the seekers in the entire universe, _Thundercracker_ had plucked him from the ravine?

Thundercracker approached him and came to a stop, his optics narrowing on Drift. "I really should have killed you."

Drift stared up at him too dumbfounded to reply.

The seeker sneered at Drift. "You're pretty fragged up."

Breaking his confused stare on Thundercracker, Drift glanced down at his own body. Dents and long scrapes covered his entire frame. One of his wheels was totally misaligned inside his the housing of his right leg, making it ache terribly. "I can't transform," he said more to himself than the looming figure standing over him.

"Not my problem," Thundercracker replied as he moved to sit down. He pulled a partially consumed energon ration that was tinted a strange shade of blue and began to sip at it.

"That energon is going bad. You shouldn't consume it." Drift reached into his own subspace pocket, pulling out a fresh ration, bright pink in color. He held it out, offering it to the seeker.

Thundercracker deeply frowned. "I don't need your charity, traitor."

Another chill ran through Drift's frame and he shivered from it. Once it passed, he set the cube down on the ground between them. "You could have left me in that ravine, or killed me as you said. Why did you bring me up here?"

"You're cold." Thundercracker sipped his own degraded energon. "That means you are suffering internal damages."

Drift's posture sunk slightly. "Yes." He then sharpened his focus on the seeker. "Answer my question. Why did you save me?"

"Who said I saved you?" Thundercracker said with a wry smile.

Drift suddenly felt like the small prey animals he'd witnessed trying to escape the larger carnivores of this planet. He was in no condition to scurry away, though. He didn't want to lie down and give up, either. He was going to have to find some sort of common ground between them, and hope to convince the seeker to let him go.

"If you hate me so much, then why not just kill me? Unless I get medical attention, I'm as good as dead anyway," Drift replied.

"I might kill you. I haven't decided yet." Thundercracker drank more of his putrid energon.

Drift cringed. "Please have the fresh ration. That stuff will corrode your tank."

"I just threatened to kill you and you want to be sure I'm not destroying my fuel tank?" Thundercracker subspaced his bad energon, and plucked the fresh cube off the ground. "You are quite odd, Deadlock."

"Drift," he quickly corrected. "My given name is Drift."

Thundercracker stared at him for a long moment, his crimson optics darkening in hue. "Megatron renames in order to control."

"I know," Drift replied, frowning. He really did feel cold, his body was now vaguely shivering and he had no control over it.

"I assume the Autobots have a base?" Thundercracker commented before sipping the fresh energon.

Drift nodded, and then hugged his arms around his torso in a vain attempt to warm himself. His body was growing colder as more of his internal systems began to shut down in order to conserve energy. If he didn't get help soon, he was not going to make it out of this alive. He glanced at the seeker. Was Thundercracker as sadistic as the other fliers? Would he sit and watch Drift die before his optics? Somehow he found it hard to believe he would. After all, he'd risked his own life and become a traitor himself when he stopped the bomb from creating a huge crater in the coastline against the orders of his superiors. Still, Drift didn't expect help from a Decepticon even when he _had been_ a Decepticon.

Thundercracker shifted, getting to his feet again. He stepped closer to Drift, then knelt down, leaning in and locking their gazes together. "You believe all that Autobot slag now? About being morally superior?"

Drift still shivered, but he maintained an almost defiant look as he held the seeker's gaze. "I believe this war has done nothing but destroy. Both sides are responsible for the mess left on Cybertron." He then narrowed his optics. "Do you believe the slag Megatron spewed in order to gather up an army to control for his personal gain?"

Thundercracker dimmed his optics slightly. "If I did, then there would be a rather large hole marring this planet, wouldn't there?"

"Then how can you accuse me of being a traitor, when you are no different than I am?" Drift felt with all his spark that they were indeed aligned as far as their personal beliefs and desires for their warring race were concerned. If only Thundercracker could see that, too…

Thundercracker grunted at Drift. "You are annoying."

"Thanks," Drift replied with a small smile.

Narrowing his optics, Thundercracker vaguely shook his head. "I saved organic life from suffering because of our tired war should never have spilled onto their world. That is not the same as seeking revenge on Turmoil and destroying his ship."

Drift shook his head. "Before I did that, I helped free a cargo ship's worth of alien race slaves being traded," Drift replied. "And Turmoil earned the revenge exacted on him."

Thundercracker's optics brightened slightly. "Earned, hm?"

"Yes. He should have known better," Drift replied. Memories he didn't like reliving, briefly flashed through his processor. Turmoil's hands roughly forcing Drift into his berth, and his jack plunging painfully inside him. His whole body shuddered and he dimmed his optics. It had been a forced encounter every time Turmoil felt like fragging. "Evil has many forms, as I discovered."

Thundercracker seemed to study his face carefully for a long moment. Neither said anything and the silence that filled the space between them felt heavy and thick. Then without warning, Drift was swept up into Thundercracker's grasp, held against the larger's mech's chest.

"If you want to live, better give me the coordinates to the Autobot base," Thundercracker said.

Surprised, Drift stared into the crimson optics trained on him. "I thought you wanted to kill me, or at least let me die."

"I've wasted more than enough time crawling around in the darkness of this war. While my choice to go against Decepticon orders led to my currently unattached state, I can't say I regret it." Thundercracker canted his head. "I guess I see a little of myself in you."

Drift transmitted coordinates that were several miles from the base, but in an area he knew his comm link would work to contact Perceptor for assistance. "Thank you…for helping a traitor."

Thundercracker shrugged, then walked out to the edge of the cave. He lifted off the ground, and took off into the sky toward the given coordinates.

Drift grasped the seeker's chest tightly. He had always loved flying, but never experienced it this way before. The Earth's thick atmosphere beat against their frames as they sped through the air, weightless. No wonder seekers hated being grounded this was exhilarating.

The mountains below them grew smaller and more rounded in shape. The snowy white and dark pine greens faded to shades of brown. Soon a long expanse of desert stretched out before them, and Thundercracker lowered his altitude, landing on the hard dried Earth below.

Thundercracker carefully put Drift down on his pedes, and let go. Drift's injured leg hurt too badly to put any real weight on and he winced, stumbling slightly as he tried to keep his balance. The larger seeker then placed his hand at the center of Drift's back to support him in his injured state. "You really mangled that leg."

"Transforming while falling wasn't one of my more brilliant moves…" Drift replied with a small smile.

In the bright sunlit area, Drift got a much better look at Thundercracker. He was covered in still healing wounds all over his frame. A partially mended hole in his shoulder from a blast seeped with mechfluid. He was as much of a mess as Drift, if not more so since he'd been wounded several Earth months ago.

"You need medical care," Drift commented.

"As do you." The seeker glanced around the desolated area. He then frowned disapprovingly. "Your base is here?"

"A few miles from here." Drift opened his comm line, pinging Perceptor.

"I guess I wouldn't trust me, either," Thundercracker replied as a small smirk crossed his lips.

:: Drift, I have been pinging you for over a day. Where have you—Your location. You are in the desert? :: Perceptor's concern bled into his voice.

:: I took a bit of a tumble, and was rescued. :: Drift replied.

:: Rescued? :: Perceptor sounded very worried. :: By who? ::

:: Thundercracker. ::

The seeker darkly glared at Drift. "I can tell you have your comm open. They coming to capture me?"

:: And he needs medical attention, :: Drift added. "I thought maybe you'd like some repairs. I was asking to bring you in."

:: The appropriate mechs are being dispatched to retrieve you both, :: Perceptor replied.

"Keh. Like I need your charity." Thundercracker frowned. "I'm not a slave on a ship. I don't need you to save me. For the first time in my wretched life I'm free. And I will not give that freedom up."

"I never said you had to become an Autobot. I just thought you might want to be repaired. That shoulder wound won't heal without proper attention," Drift replied, concerned.

Thundercracker leaned in, his face hovering so close to Drift's their noses almost touched. "You are odd, Drift." He then smiled. "But I kind of like that about you. Maybe our paths will cross again, but this is where we part."

Drift stared into those deep crimson optics, and suddenly felt an undeniable attraction to the seeker. He was not only beautiful, but also a mech Drift could relate to in a way he couldn't with any of the Autobots. "Stay."

Thundercraker shook his head. "Not today. But feel free to come looking for me." With that, he let go of Drift and stepped back.

Pain flared over his sensory net as he was forced to put weight on his injured leg. He pulled his long sword from it's place on his back, and used it to prop himself up. By the time he'd steadied himself, Thundercracker was already in the air, putting distance between them. He gazed at this retreating form, sadly smiling at the sight. "I will definitely come looking for you…"


End file.
